TOKYO -- The age of blue-laser-based video disc recorders may finally be beginning, and we can thank the Olympic Games for this.
Matsushita Electric Industrial, better known to you and me as Panasonic, is launching a Blu-Ray Disc-based video recorder in Japan in August just in time for the Olympics. The time zone difference means that many Olympics events will be broadcast in the middle of the night here, and so recording them is a must for many Japanese--but there's a problem for HDTV viewers.
Japanese public television network NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) is going all-out and planning to air 250 hours of Olympics coverage in high-definition television. Hundreds of thousands of HDTV viewers can take advantage of this, but only if they watch the events live. Most video recorders, including the latest all-digital machines, cannot record in HDTV, so time-shifting viewers must make do with a reduced picture quality.
Panasonic's Blu-Ray Disc recorder addresses that problem because it can record in HDTV. It's not the first; Sony is also shipping a Blu-Ray recorder, and the desire to record the Olympics events should give a boost to Blu-Ray product sales. Sony's prices are in the neighborhood of $3000 to $4000, although the timing is right to tempt Japanese company employees who are receiving their mid-year bonuses, which average $7700.
Panasonic Blu-Ray Disc Recorder
Although Panasonic's Blu-Ray Disc recorder is the second such product on the market, it is the most fully featured yet. The DMR-E700BD can record 4.5 hours of digital satellite HDTV programming when used with 50GB dual-layer Blu-Ray Disc Rewritable media. It's also compatible with DVD-R and DVD-RAM media, although not for HDTV recording.
Panasonic's Blu-Ray recorder is scheduled to go on sale in Japan on July 31, for around $2780. Blank Blu-Ray Disc Rewritable media will cost $68 per disc for the 50GB type and $31 for the 25GB type.
The company won't provide sales forecasts, but says it plans to manufacture 2000 units per month. There are no international launch plans.
Sony Network Hard-Disk Walkman
It's been more than two years since Apple launched its IPod and began stealing thunder from Sony's Walkman in the portable audio market. Now, Sony has finally released a Walkman to compete.
The NW-HD1 is small and looks great, plus its 20GB drive offers enough space for 13,000 songs, according to Sony. The only downside is that it's limited to Sony's ATRAC3 format. Bundled software will convert MP3 audio into ATRAC3, and the 20GB drive space means there's plenty of room for your songs once they're converted, so perhaps this won't prove too big an obstacle for consumers.
The player runs on an internal rechargeable battery that Sony says will last for up to 30 hours when playing files encoded at the minimum supported bit rate of 48 kilobits per second.
The NW-HD1 went on sale in Japan in mid-July for $490. It will come to the U.S. in the middle of August with a price tag of less than $400, and hit Europe later this year at an unspecified price.
NEC Travel Translator
We all have our own ways of dealing with foreign languages when traveling overseas. Some people try to learn a little; some people live by their phrase book; and others stick to their mother tongue but just speak it more loudly. A new product from NEC may change all of that.
The NEC Travel Translator resembles the portable digital translators popular in Japan, but is more capable than those electronic dictionaries. This gadget supports voice recognition, so you can speak your query or statement and it displays a translation on its screen. It currently supports only English and Japanese. It has a vocabulary of around 50,000 Japanese words and 25,000 English words centered on those useful when traveling.
The translator is expected to go on sale in Japan by year end. NEC hasn't yet decided on a price or whether it will offer versions for other languages.
Toshiba Gigabeat MP3 Player
Toshiba has expanded its Gigabeat digital music player with new 5GB and 40GB models to supplement the original 20GB model. It also has some new functions, including support for Microsoft Windows Media Audio digital rights management technology. This means you can play music encoded in WMA and purchased from online download sites. Support for MP3 remains, and an optional LAN adapter is also available, enabling the Gigabeat to be used as a network hard drive.
Also new is the capability to charge the Gigabeat from a USB connection. Prices are $272 for the 5GB model, $428 for 20GB, and $500 for 40GB. They'll go on sale in Japan between July and September, and Toshiba is considering launching them overseas.
Canon Network Camera
Do you ever get the feeling someone is watching you? With Canon's VB-C50i network camera, they just might be. The all-in-one unit includes a network server so it can connect directly to an Ethernet connection for remote monitoring.
The camera's image quality is VGA (640 by 480 pixels) at 30 frames per second. It has a 26X optical zoom and a night mode that uses infrared light to illuminate the area being viewed. It can pan horizontally in 100 degrees in each direction, and it can tilt 90 degrees upwards and 30 degrees downwards. Canon has just released it in both Japan and the U.S., priced at $1821.
Sharp 45-Inch LCD HDTV
Sharp's latest flat-panel LCD TV is quite a feast for the eyes. The set uses a 45-inch LCD panel with full high-definition display at 1920 by 1080 pixels. In size, Sharp's LCD is second only to a 46-inch panel from South Korea's Samsung Electronics.
The LCD TV's features are fairly standard, such as its built-in receiver for high-definition satellite and terrestrial broadcasting. Sharp has set a price to match the screen's grand size: It will cost $9060 when it goes on sale on August 1, in Japan only. Sharp currently has no plans to sell it overseas.
NEC 3G/Wireless IP Mobile Phone
NEC has developed Japan's first mobile telephone to be compatible with both Wi-Fi-based IP telephony and conventional cellular services, in this case NTT DoCoMo's 3G service.
The N900iL handset is a modified version of an existing NEC 3G phone and is targeted at business users with office IP telephone systems. In the office, it interacts with the IP telephone system just like any internal handset. But on the road it can also be used for calls, anywhere within range of NTT DoCoMo's 3G network. The N900iL will go on sale to corporate customers in Japan later this year at pricing between $370 and $460.
Toshiba Prototype Fuel Cell
The day's coming when batteries, both rechargeable and disposable, are a thing of the past.
From the research and development labs at Toshiba comes a prototype fuel cell that runs on methanol. The fuel cell is compact, measuring 0.9 inches wide by 2.2 inches long and 0.2 inches thick.
Its total output power is 100 milliwatts, which is enough to power an MP3 player for around 20 hours on a single charge of 2 cubic centimeters of methanol. Toshiba says it hopes the fuel cell will be ready for commercial launch sometime in 2005.
Martyn Williams is Tokyo bureau chief for the IDG News Service, a consortium of IDG publications.
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